The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

Friday, June 26, 2015

There exists a
crucial underlying misconception in the West headed by the Obama
administration regarding the final nuclear deal with the Islamic
Republic, which is approaching its June 30th deadline.

In a recent interview that President Obama gave to Israeli outlet Channel 2’s Ilana Dayan, he indirectly defended the Islamic Republic and suggested that the ruling clerics are not going to cheat on the terms of the final nuclear deal. But how can President Obama be so sure about Iran’s compliance if a deal is reached and when economic sanctions are lifted? Is he making such an argument based on Iran’s past history of nuclear defiance? Or based on its current military intervention in several nations and support for Shiite militia groups, proxies, and Islamic Jihad?

It is crucial to point out that the nuclear activities of the Islamic Republic came to the international spotlight due to Iran’s clandestine and underground nuclear sites. Iran had since repeatedly violated the IAEA’s terms by building additional underground nuclear sites and inching towards nuclear capabilities in order to obtain nuclear weapons.

President Obama also argued that sanctions will snap back in case Iran cheats. Nevertheless, the truth is that there is no such thing as automatic snapping back of sanctions. In addition, by the time that the international community realizes that Iran has cheated, Iran would have reduced the nuclear break-out capacity to zero, boosted its Revolutionary Guards’ economy, and gained billions of dollars. Secondly, Russia and China will scuttle any process that would snap back the economic sanctions.

There exists a crucial underlying misconception in the West headed by the Obama administration regarding the final nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic, which is approaching its June 30th deadline.

From President Obama and the Western powers’s perspective, the nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic is going to be transformational and revolutionary. This follows that the West, and particularly the White House, contends that the final nuclear deal or the nuclear resolution is going to transform the character of Iran’s political system in the long term; hence it will fundamentally alter Iran’s regional, domestic policies, shift its support for Shiite militia groups and proxies across the Middle East, moderate Iran’s foreign policy, and probably change the government in the long term.

On the other hand, from the Iranian leaders’ perspective, the nuclear deal is transitory, fleeting, momentary and transactional. In other words, Iranian authorities will follow the rules of the nuclear agreement for the limited time assigned in the deal. They will boost their economy, regain billions of dollars, and reinitiate their nuclear program soon after.

As long as Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is alive, the Islamic Republic is going to prioritize its Islamist revolutionary ideologies. The 75-years-old man, who has ruled over 25 years and continuously spread anti-American and anti-Semitic propaganda, is not going to change his position and become a Western-loving person open to forces of globalization and integration. His has created a powerful social base based on his anti-American and anti-Semitic propagandas.

Since Iranian leaders view the final nuclear deal on a short-term basis, from the perspective of Iranian leaders, particularly Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and influential officials of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), reaching a final nuclear deal is a no-brainer, economically speaking. In addition, the leaders of the Islamic Republic are cognizant of the fact that they will not give up their nuclear program based on the current terms of the nuclear agreement.

Most recently, Royal Dutch Shell PLC, which owes the Islamic Republic an outstanding debt of more than $2 billion, has been talking about repaying Iranian leaders the debt after the nuclear deal is signed. and consequently the related sanctions are lifted. Several other foreign companies were unable to pay Iran due to the financial and banking sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council and previous US administrations. Nevertheless, President Obama is opening the way for the flow of billions of dollars into the revolutionary Islamist ideology of the Islamic Republic.

It is crucial to point out that the flow of billions of dollars into the Islamic Republic will not trickle down to the Iranian ordinary people or even be distributed equally among the governmental institutions such as Iran’s foreign ministry. An overwhelming majority of the cash will likely be controlled by the IRGC, Quds forces (an elite revolutionary branch of IRGC fighting in foreign countries) and office of the Supreme Leader. The IRGC and office of the Supreme Leader do enjoy a monopoly over major economic sectors of the Islamic Republic.

The issue of immediate access to billions of dollars is particularly appealing and crucial for the Iranian leaders due to the notion that Tehran looks at the final nuclear deal through the prism of short-term, immediate economic and geopolitical boosts.

As a result, the final nuclear deal is viewed as purely short-term business for the IRGC and the Supreme Leader.

Finally, it is rational for every government to have strategies to rein in Iran’s full economic return. But, what is the Obama administration’s strategy? Apparently, the Obama administration does not have one. This is due to the fact that the administration believes that the Islamic Republic will not cheat, interfere in other nations’ affairs, or do any harm in case sanctions are lifted. In other words, the Islamic Republic is going to be another Switzerland.Dr. Majid Rafizadeh Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/majid-rafizadeh/the-wests-misconceptions-over-the-final-nuclear-deal/ Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

What is impossible to understand is how the administration, members
of Congress, local and state politicians and journalists have been
absolutely unwilling to “connect the impossible to ignore dots” that are
flashing, not unlike the strobe lights on a police car or other
emergency vehicle.

Usually
the first challenge I face in writing my commentaries is to come up
with a concise title that captures the most salient part of the issue I
am writing about. Today I found this task easy, I simply borrowed the
headline from CBS News’ Face the Nation article that quoted none other
than Congressional Representative Devin Nunes, the Chairman of the House
Intelligence Committee.

That headline is concise and echoes the very same concerns I have had
in reviewing all of the publicly available information on the issue of
threats posed by international terrorists.

What is impossible to understand is how the administration, members
of Congress, local and state politicians and journalists have been
absolutely unwilling to “connect the impossible to ignore dots” that are
flashing, not unlike the strobe lights on a police car or other
emergency vehicle.

Here is the segment of the article that accompanied the headline and
addressed the topic of the threat of terrorism in the United States
today:

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes,
R-California, said the nation faces “the highest threat level we have
ever faced in this country” due to the flow of foreign fighters to and
from Iraq and Syria and the radicalization of young people on the
Internet.U.S. officials have been warning for months about the threat posed
by people from America or Western Europe who travel to the Middle East
to fight with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)
and then return to their home countries, where they may carry out
attacks. Nunes said the U.S. is not aware of all the people who have
made the trek or who have now come back, although FBI Director James
Comey has said there are cases open in all 50 states.Officials are increasingly looking for ways to combat radical jihadists’ effectiveness in recruiting supporters through social media.“They’re very good at communicating through separate avenues where
it’s very difficult to track,” he said. “That’s why when you get a
young person who is willing to get into these chat rooms, go on the
Internet and get radicalized, it’s something we are not only unprepared
[for], we are also not used to it in this country.”He said that investigations often “do no good” in encrypted chat
rooms where those communications take place, so Americans should be
diligent about reporting suspicious activity to the proper authorities
because “we are having a tough time tracking terrorist cells within the
United States.”The warnings are particularly pertinent with the July 4 holiday
approaching. Nunes noted that there will be large gatherings in every
city across America.

“It’s just tough to secure those types of areas if you have
someone who wants to blow themselves up or open fire or other threats of
that nature and we just don’t know or can track all of the bad guys
that are out there today,” he said.

The famed playwright, George Bernard Shaw’s statement says it all:

“We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.”

If our leaders were to seek to learn history’s lessons they should read the appropriate history books.

The 9/11 Commission Report and the “9/11 and Terrorist Travel – Staff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States”
are the most complete and authoritative “history books” concerning the
terror attacks of September 11, 2001 and even included evaluations of
vulnerabilities that led to previous terror attacks — both those that
succeeded and those that failed. These books were prepared by the
government of the United States in response to the horrific terror
attacks that left more than 3,000 innocent victims dead.

My May 22, 2015 commentary for the Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) website, “Bin Laden, The 9/11 Commission Report and Immigration,”
addressed the fact that when the U.S. Navy SEALS raided the bin Laden
compound, among the documents found in his library were a copy of the
9/11 Commission Report and a copy of an application for United States
citizenship. It must be presumed that he had no intentions of filing for
U.S. citizenship himself, but was contemplating embedding his terrorist
operatives in the United States through the naturalization process.

Presumably bin Laden read that report — the obvious question that has
no obvious answer, is “how many member[s] of the administration, Congress,
political leaders in states and cities around the United States and
journalists who are quick to chime in with their proclamations about how
to ‘fix’ the ‘broken’ immigration system have actually read those
reports?”

The damage inflicted on the United States and indeed the world by
those attacks, has been inestimable and it continues to reverberate in
so many ways. These reports both addressed the issue of the ways in
which the 9/11 terrorists were able to enter the United States and embed
themselves in the United States. The latter of those two reports (the
Staff Report) obviously focused the ways that the terrorists were able
to travel around the world as they went about their deadly preparation
and on flaws and vulnerabilities in the immigration system that failed
to prevent the entry and subsequent embedding of not only the 19
hijackers, but other terrorists who were identified as operating in the
United States in the decade leading up to the attacks of 9/11.

In point of fact, the investigation upon which these reports were
based determined that the ability of the terrorists to travel around the
world and cross international borders, especially the borders of the
United States, were essential to the ability of the terrorists to carry
out those deadly attacks.

The preface of the report begins with the following three paragraphs
and makes it clear that this report sought information from as many
credible sources as possible:

It is perhaps obvious to state that terrorists cannot
plan and carry out attacks in the United States if they are unable to
enter the country. Yet prior to September 11, while there were efforts
to enhance border security, no agency of the U.S. government thought of
border security as a tool in the counterterrorism arsenal. Indeed, even
after 19 hijackers demonstrated the relative ease of obtaining a U.S.
visa and gaining admission into the United States, border security still
is not considered a cornerstone of national security policy. We
believe, for reasons we discuss in the following pages, that it must be
made one.Congress gave the Commission the mandate to study, evaluate, and report on “immigration,
nonimmigrant visas and border security” as these areas relate to the
events of 9/11. This staff report represents 14 months of such research.
It is based on thousands of pages of documents we reviewed from the
State Department, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the
Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department
of Defense, approximately 25 briefings on various border security
topics, and more than 200 interviews. We are grateful to all who
assisted and supported us along the way.The story begins with “A Factual Overview of the September 11 Border Story.” Thisintroduction
summarizes many of the key facts of the hijackers’ entry into the
United States. In it, we endeavor to dispel the myth that their entry
into the United States was “clean and legal.” It was not. Three
hijackers carried passports with indicators of Islamic extremism linked
to al Qaeda; two others carried passports manipulated in a
fraudulent manner. It is likely that several more hijackers carried
passports with similar fraudulent manipulation. Two hijackers lied on
their visa applications. Once in the United States, two hijackers
violated the terms of their visas. One overstayed his visa. And all but
one obtained some form of state identification. We know that six of the
hijackers used these state issued identifications to check in for their
flights on September 11. Three of them were fraudulently obtained.

Page 46 and 47 of this report noted:

By analyzing information available at the time, we
identified numerous entry and embedding tactics associated with these
earlier attacks in the United States.The World Trade Center Bombing, February 1993. Three
terrorists who were involved with the first World Trade Center bombing
reportedly traveled on Saudi passports containing an indicator of
possible terrorist affiliation. Three of the 9/11 hijackers also had
passports containing this same possible indicator of terrorist
affiliation.5In addition, Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the attack, and Ahmad
Ajaj, who was able to direct aspects of the attack despite being in
prison for using an altered passport, traveled under aliases using
fraudulent documents. The two of them were found to possess five
passports as well as numerous documents supporting their aliases: a
Saudi passport showing signs of alteration, an Iraqi passport bought
from a Pakistani official, a photo-substituted Swedish passport, a
photo-substituted British passport, a Jordanian passport, identification
cards, bank records, education records, and medical records.6“Once terrorists had entered the United States, their next
challenge was to find a way to remain here. Their primary method was
immigration fraud. For example, Yousef and Ajaj concocted bogus
political asylum stories when they arrived in the United States. Mahmoud
Abouhalima, involved in both the World Trade Center and landmarks
plots, received temporary residence under the Seasonal Agricultural
Workers (SAW) program, after falsely claiming that he picked beans in
Florida.” Mohammed Salameh, who rented the truck used in the bombing,
overstayed his tourist visa. He then applied for permanent residency
under the agricultural workers program, but was rejected. Eyad Mahmoud
Ismail, who drove the van containing the bomb, took English-language
classes at Wichita State University in Kansas on a student visa; after
he dropped out, he remained in the United States out of status.

Page 61 contained this passage:

Exploring the Link between Human Smugglers and TerroristsIn July 2001, the CIA warned of a possible link between human smugglers and terroristgroups,
including Hamas, Hezbollah, and Egyptian Islamic Jihad.149 Indeed,
there is evidence to suggest that since 1999 human smugglers have
facilitated the travel of terrorists associated with more than a dozen
extremist groups.150 With their global reach and connections to
fraudulent document vendors and corrupt government officials, human
smugglers clearly have the “credentials” necessary to aid terrorist
travel.This paragraph is found on page 98 under the title “Immigration Benefits:”“Terrorists in the 1990s, as well as the September 11 hijackers,
needed to find a way to stay in or embed themselves in the United States
if their operational plans were to come to fruition. As already
discussed, this could be accomplished legally by marrying an American
citizen, achieving temporary worker status, or applying for asylum after
entering. In many cases, the act of filing for an immigration benefit
sufficed to permit the alien to remain in the country until the petition
was adjudicated. Terrorists were free to conduct surveillance,
coordinate operations, obtain and receive funding, go to school and
learn English, make contacts in the United States, acquire necessary
materials, and execute an attack.”

Both reports made it abundantly clear that had our immigration system worked, the attacks could not have been carried out.

Engineers use the term “root cause” to describe a fundamental failure
from which all else that went wrong happened. For example, if a car’s
brakes fail and the car hits a tree, the fact that the airbags failed to
deploy is important, but the point is that the crash would not have
happened in the first place if the brakes had worked.

Similarly, the terror attacks that have been carried out in the
United States all resulted by the “root cause” of failures of the
immigration system to prevent the terrorists from entering the United
States in the first place.

The next failure of the immigration system occurred when terrorists
were able to embed themselves in the United States. In this regard two
factors came into play.

1. Terrorists who violated their immigration status were not
apprehended even when they interacted with local police, leaving them
free to remain at large.

2. Terrorists were able to acquire many identity documents — some
actually issued by state governments — in false names, concealing their
identities and movements.

Today most politicians have accepted the deceptive language first
implemented by Carter administration when the former INS (Immigration
and Naturalization Service) mandated that its employees refer to aliens
illegally present in the United States as being “undocumented
immigrants,” an obfuscating and purposefully innocuous sounding term.

This was obviously done to create the misimpression that these
individuals were simply immigrants who needed a piece of paper.
Therefore the only thing we needed to do was give them the bureaucratic
equivalent of a “hall pass” to make things okay.

The truth could not be more different from this lie that was and
continues to be foisted on Americans by our own government. Aliens who
evade the inspections process conducted at ports of entry should be
referred to by the term that immigration enforcement personnel use, “EWI
(Entry Without Inspection). This is the equivalent of trespassing or
“breaking and entering.”

Such aliens are unscreened. We have no record of their entry and they
may well be fugitives from justice in other countries, may have links
to criminal or terrorist organizations.

The 9/11 Commission Reportaddressed the importance of the immigration inspections process conducted at ports of entry noting:

Inspectors at the ports of entry were not asked to
focus on terrorists. Inspectors told us they were not even aware that
when they checked the names of incoming passengers against the automated
watchlist, they were checking in part for terrorists. In general,
border inspectors also did not have the information they needed to make
fact-based determinations of admissibility.The INS initiated but failed
to bring to completion two efforts that would have provided inspectors
with information relevant to counterterrorism—a proposed system to track
foreign student visa compliance and a program to establish a way of
tracking travelers’ entry to and exit from the United States.

Page 54 contained this excerpt under the title “3.2 Terrorist Travel Tactics by Plot.”

Here is an excerpt from that report that makes the above issues crystal clear:

Although there is evidence that some land and sea
border entries (of terrorists) without inspection occurred, these
conspirators mainly subverted the legal entry system by entering at
airports.In doing so, they relied on a wide variety of fraudulent
documents, on aliases, and on government corruption. Because terrorist
operations were not suicide missions in the early to mid-1990s, once in
the United States terrorists and their supporters tried to get legal
immigration status that would permit them to remain here, primarily by
committing serial, or repeated, immigration fraud, by claiming political
asylum, and by marrying Americans. Many of these tactics would remain
largely unchanged and undetected throughout the 1990s and up to the 9/11
attack.Thus, abuse of the immigration system and a lack of interior
immigration enforcement were unwittingly working together to support
terrorist activity. It would remain largely unknown, since no agency of
the United States government analyzed terrorist travel patterns until
after 9/11. This lack of attention meant that critical opportunities to
disrupt terrorist travel and, therefore, deadly terrorist operations
were missed.

Meanwhile there are mayors of some cities and even governors of some
states that have created “sanctuaries” for aliens who evaded the
inspections process at ports of entry that represent both our first line
of defense and last line of defense against international terrorists,
transnational criminals and others whose presence in the United States
poses a threat to national security and the safety and well-being of
Americans — and even members of the ethnic immigrant communities of
which they are a part, irrespective of what their native countries might
be. These politicians are even providing driver’s licenses and
municipal identification documents, ignoring the fact that criminals and
terrorists use changes in identity the way that chameleons use changes
in coloration to hide in plain sight, often among their intended
victims.

How can our nation’s leaders be so blind or corrupt as to ignore what
should be commonsense issues that were clearly identified in the 9/11
Commission Report and the companion report I have noted above?

At that hearing I noted that
advocates for amnesty for millions of illegal aliens should get the
“MVP Award” from al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations. That
statement applies today more than ever before.

Michael Cutler is a retired Senior Special Agent of the former INS (Immigration and
Naturalization Service) whose career spanned some 30 years. He served as
an Immigration Inspector, Immigration Adjudications Officer and spent
26 years as an agent who rotated through all of the squads within the
Investigations Branch. For half of his career he was assigned to the
Drug Task Force. He has testified before well over a dozen congressional
hearings, provided testimony to the 9/11 Commission as well as state
legislative hearings around the United States and at trials where
immigration is at issue. He hosts his radio show, “The Michael Cutler Hour,” on Friday evenings on BlogTalk Radio. His personal website is http://michaelcutler.net/.Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/michael-cutler/rep-nunes-america-faces-highest-terror-threat-level-ever/ Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The ensuing mass rape, beheading, murder, burning, and looting spree
was the first step in a process that throughout the Arab world
effectively ended 2,600 years of Jewish existence in those lands.
Ultimately, some 850,000 to 900,000 Jews were systemically pauperized
and made stateless in a coordinated forced exodus from the Arab world.

While
I was speaking to the packed room, a woman I did not know, sitting in
the front row, slowly shook her tear-stained head in disbelief and
muttered softly … barely audible … “I never thought I would hear these
words in this building.”

The woman, it turns out, was of Iraqi Jewish ancestry. The building
was the iconic United Nations Headquarters in Manhattan, astride the
East River. The event was in a hall routinely used by the UN Security
Council. The day was June 1, 2015. The occasion was the proclamation of “International Farhud Day” at the UN as a live global event broadcast by UN TV.

Farhud in an Arabic dialect means violent dispossession.
The words I spoke that gripped the woman listening described in detail
how the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, leader of the Arab
community in Mandate Palestine, organized a blood-curdling massacre by
Nazi-allied Arabs against Baghdad’s peaceful Jewish community on June
1-2, 1941. The ensuing mass rape, beheading, murder, burning, and looting spree
was the first step in a process that throughout the Arab world
effectively ended 2,600 years of Jewish existence in those lands.
Ultimately, some 850,000 to 900,000 Jews were systemically pauperized
and made stateless in a coordinated forced exodus from the Arab world.

Many Sephardic Jews consider the 1941 Farhud, which murdered and maimed hundreds, to be their Kristallnacht.

However, for the past 74 years, neither the facts about the brutal,
two-day pogrom, nor the culpability of the Nazified Iraqi and
Palestinian Arab perpetrators, nor the expulsion of 850,000 Jewish
refugees from the Arab world that followed were topics the UN wanted to
hear of. Nor for the past 74 years was this blood-letting and its
aftermath commemorated in the vast chronicles of organized Holocaust
remembrances. Nor for the past 74 years was this constellation of
tragedies commonly known and/or spoken of within the Jewish community.
In fact, it took years of highly acrimonious, sometimes public, debate with and pressure on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ‑‑ only recently successful ‑‑ to even induce the USHMM to recognize either the atrocity that occurred or the Mufti’s role in the killing as a Holocaust-era persecution.

Indeed, the Farhud is most often referred to as the “forgotten
pogrom.” I first wrote about this massacre, in fleeting passage, in my
2004 book, Banking on Baghdad. My articles on the subject in the media, drawn from the book, such as those syndicated by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, were typically headlined “The Forgotten Pogrom.” That spawned the 2005 Farhud Recognition Project, which endeavored to bring this brutal Holocaust chapter into history’s sightlines.

Half a decade later, in 2010, I went further and published an entire book devoted to the topic, The Farhud: Roots of the Arab-Nazi Alliance in the Holocaust.
Yet, ten years after being “rediscovered” and right through the week
before the UN event, Jewish media articles were still referring to the
Farhud as the “forgotten pogrom.” Conference of Presidents vice
chairman, Malcolm Hoenlein, in his introductory remarks at the June 1,
2015 UN event, poignantly asked this question: “I must wonder why it
took 74 years for the world to recognize the tragedy of the Farhud.”

Certainly, that was the question of the day. Three main reasons
explain how mass carnage as barbaric as the Farhud remained out of
earshot and over the horizon of Holocaust awareness.

First, persecution of Jewish victims in Arab countries did not
conform to the established line of study that followed the classic
Holocaust definition, as archetypically expressed by the USHMM’s mission statement: “The
Holocaust was the state-sponsored, systematic persecution and
annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators
between 1933 and 1945.” Note the pivotal word “European.” This geographic qualifier left out the Jews of Iraq as well as their persecuted coreligionists in North Africa, where some 17 concentration camps were established by Vichy-allied and Nazi influenced Arab regimes.

Second, because the persecution of Jews in Arab lands during WWII and
their forced exodus was considered beyond the thematic horizon, the
type of well-financed and skilled scholarship that has riveted world
attention on the Holocaust in Europe, generally by-passed the Sephardic
experience. Certainly, the overwhelming blood and eternal sorrow of the
Holocaust genocide was experienced by European Jewry. But their deeply
tragic suffering, including that endured by my Polish parents, who
survived, does not exclude the examination of other groups. Years of
focus on the plight of Gypsies, Jews in Japan, and other persecuted
groups proves that. Undeniably, a solid nexus clasps the events of the
Middle East, roiling in oil, colonialism, and League of Nations
Mandates, to a European theatre brimming with war crimes and military
campaigns.

After the 1941 Farhud and during the subsequent years Husseini was on Hitler’s payroll, the Mufti of Jerusalem toured European concentration camps and intervened at the highest levels to send European children to death camps in occupied Poland rather than see them rescued them into Mandate Palestine. In his diary, Husseini called Adolf Eichmann “a rare diamond.” What’s more, the tens of thousands of Nazified Arabs who fought in three Waffen SS Divisions in the Balkans and across all of Europe, were fighting for a Palestine and a greater Middle East Arab cause that hinged on Jewish extermination and colonial upheaval. When I wrote The Farhud
in 2010, the focus was on excavating the details of a forgotten pogrom
and a forgotten Nazi alliance. Only in recent years has a renewed
trickle of excellent scholarship yielded gripping new research into the
Arab role in the Holocaust. For example, there is Islam and Nazi Germany’s War, which The Wall Street Journal reviewed as “impeccably researched.” A second book, Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East,
by meticulous Arab and Turkish culture researcher Wolfgang Schwanitz,
was published by Yale University Press. There are several excellent
others.

Third, critics say, that many of the leading Jewish newspapers and
wire services, now vastly more politicized than they were in the prior
decade, did not devote sufficient space and informed knowledge to the
topic. Moreover, some these critics suggest that in recent years, the
Jewish press seemed to have marginalized the atrocity and its aftermath
as a political discussion. “When former Deputy Foreign Minister Danny
Ayalon was doing his 2012 campaign for Jewish refugees from Arab lands,”
asserts Lyn Julius of the British organization HARIF – Association of
Jews from North Africa and the Middle East, “hardly a day went by when
certain Jewish or Israeli newspapers did not politicize the matter, or
suggest Israel was exploiting the issue for political gain.”

In that vein, the day before the June 1, 2015 UN event, one prominent
Jewish newspaper published an article on the Farhud, which included
this observation: “Now, Jewish organizations and the Israeli government
deploy it [memory of the Farhud] frequently to support their claims for
refugee recognition on behalf of Middle Eastern Jews.” Before the UN
ceremony, three different irate members of the audience showed me this
article on their tablets, and the consensus of disdain was expressed by
one Sephardic gentleman who objected, first quoting the newspaper with
derision: “‘Deploy it frequently to support their claims for refugee
recognition on behalf of Middle Eastern Jews?'” and then adding, “They
would never say such a thing about the European Kristallnacht!” The
complainers were equally astonished that this prominent article made no
mention of the Mufti of Jerusalem. They felt the complete omission of
Husseini’s involvement and the marginalization of their nightmare was
typical of the roadblocks they had encountered during their decades-long
struggle for recognition of their anguish.

But on June 1, 2015, yes, 74 inexcusably years late and, yes, not an
hour too soon, after waiting for thirty minutes beneath a gaggle of
umbrellas in the torrential rain at a narrow admittance gate on First
Ave, and then into a packed hall at the UN, attended by diplomats from
several countries, human rights activists of various causes and key
Jewish leaders from a communal spectrum, in an event broadcast worldwide live by the UN itself,
the stalwarts of Farhud memory gathered to finally make the
proclamation of International Farhud Day — and made it loud and clear.
In doing so, they made history by simply recognizing history.

All they wanted was to be remembered — to change the headline on
their suffering from “the forgotten pogrom” to “the not forgotten
pogrom.” All they wanted was to draw back the curtain of their sorrow
without an asterisk, without a parenthetical, without a “but also” or a
“however” or a political catchphrase to qualify or filter their
disconsolation. In short, they wanted to take their place in the annals
of misery for the same reason all other Jews gather into that space: so
they can help whisper endlessly the words “never again” as a beacon to
humanity.

That happened on June 1, 2015, 74 years too late but not a minute too soon. The official proclamation
was read aloud that day to the world: “On behalf of Iraqi Jews
everywhere who yearn to commemorate the Farhud, the Holocaust-era
massacre by Arab nationalists in coordination with the Nazis, which
occurred June 1-2, 1941 in Baghdad, killing hundreds of innocent Jews
and brutalizing thousands more, and pillaging their property …. and on
behalf of those who recognize that Palestinian Arab leaders, including
the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, were central
instigators of the violence in Baghdad, along with Iraqi Prime Minister
Rashid Ali al-Gailani and the Golden Square coup plotters … and on
behalf of those who yearn to recognize that the Farhud was the first
step in the process which resulted in the forced exodus of 850,000 to
900,000 Jewish refugees from centuries of peaceful existence in Arab
countries … The organizations and individuals assembled and represented
here, this June 1, 2015, in New York City at the United Nations, do
hereby proclaim June 1st as International Farhud Day, to
recognize and commemorate the Nazi-allied massacre by Arabs, the mass
forced exodus that followed, and the 850,000 to 900,000 Jewish refugees
from Arab Lands. We recognize this date as a lamented day of history
that should not be forgotten.”

On behalf of Congressional Israel-Allies Caucus in the House of Representatives, co-chair Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), issued a public statement
expressing “deepest solidarity with Iraqi and the Arab world’s Jews.
Franks declared, “Today we will change the first of June from a day of a
near-forgotten tragedy into International Farhud Day – a day of
commemoration – when we call on the entire world to remember the
disaster that befell the Arab world’s Jews, and to do justice by them
and their descendants.”

Those who know the complex inter-relations and brimming calendar of
the Jewish communal scene would understandably guess that such an
international and multi-organizational undertaking ‑‑ at the UN as a
live global event no less ‑‑ would necessitate many months of tedious
planning, and probably a grant or two from the donor community. In fact,
the entire enterprise took just six weeks from the first light bulb
email on April 9 to the culminating applause of Farhud Day
on June 1, 2015. As a testament to the long overdue recognition and the
deep-seated and visceral understanding of the tragedy,
uncharacteristically, the prime movers came together immediately,
cohesively, and with humanitarian synchrony. There was no real funding,
except for the shoestring contributions of the participants. A team of
volunteers were found to man the event.

Key among the responsible parties was Alyza Lewin who had
successfully coordinated a UN event on UNRWA some months earlier. The
two organizations she represented, the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists and the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists,
combined the heft of their juridical grasp of international law and
human rights abuses to inject the needed gravitas and perspective. Rabbi
Elie Abadie, born in Beirut, heads up Justice for Jews from Arab Countries
and has long been a warrior for recognition of both the Farhud and the
unrecognized and forgotten nightmare of 850,000 to 900,000 Jewish
refugees from Arab countries. When he agreed to be program moderator,
Rabbi Abadie imbued the effort with the long overlooked activist fire
needed to fuel the effort. Maurice Shohet, as head of the World Organization of Jews from Iraq
added the indispensable historical sinew to the survivor and descendant
community. His dignity and intrinsic epicentral voice was listened to
at all times as the program was developed. StandWithUs,
as America’s pre-eminent Jewish and Israel defense organization, was
not new to the topic. For years, its president Roz Rothstein had
elevated the Farhud and the related forced expulsion of Jews from Arab
Lands to a prominent place in the constellation of StandWithUs causes.

My end was simply the history. History, when connected to the present, can be a spark plug for the future.

Unlisted in the list of proclamation signers, was Israel’s Permanent
Mission to the United Nations. Its mighty efforts bored through tunnels
of UN bureaucracy and secured the space, time, and broadcast slot at the
UN. Israel’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations,
Ambassador David Roet came forward to provide introductory remarks
for the UN program and, in so doing, revealed his family’s personal
connection to the historical injustice of the Holocaust — a credential
all too often known among Israeli diplomats. Two Long Island Jewish high
schools, Mesivta and Shalhevet, organized a bus of students who came to
witness the making of history.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry devoted a page International Farhud Day. The Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles opened a page as well. So did the Israeli Consulate in Boston.
Google added the day to their online calendar cites. Within 48 hours of
the event, a simple Google search yielded more than 5,000 entries for
“International Farhud Day.” Hashtags such as for #FarhudDay appeared.

From that very rainy moment June 1, 2015 at the UN and going forward,
memories of the day Baghdad burned in 1941, will no longer be
invisible, muffled, or parenthesized. The long, painful threnody of the
Holocaust that never lacks for cadenzas now includes a refrain for the
Jews of Baghdad and 850,000 of their co-religionists across the Arab
world for whom the persecution never stopped when the Third Reich was
toppled in May 1945. For them, forever more, we have imbued an added
dimension, in a macabre cubist process that never lacks for additional
dimensions, when we look out, look back, and look within, to intone the
haunting always-wafting injunction: Never Again.Edwin Black is the author of "IBM and the Holocaust", and "The Farhud -- Roots of
the Arab-Nazi Alliance in the Holocaust". He began the initiative to
proclaim "International Farhud Day" at the United Nations.Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/edwin-black/international-farhud-day-at-the-un/ Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The involvement of minors in Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist activity
in Saudi Arabia caused a stir in the country's press. Articles on the
issue harshly criticized Saudi culture, saying that it was saturated
with sectarian hatred and with admiration of violence, and called for
fundamental changes in it.

Introduction

A terror cell arrested recently in Saudi Arabia includes two
15-year-olds and a 16-year-old, the Saudi Interior Ministry has
revealed. The cell carried out the May 22, 2015 bombing of the Shi'ite
mosque in Al-Qudaih in eastern Saab, in which 22 were killed and dozens
wounded, and planned several other attacks in the country.[1]Left to right: 'Abdallah Al-Sa'awi, 16;, 'Abdallah Al-Taleq, 15; Saleh Al-Sa'awi, 15. Source: Al-Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 26, 2015)

The involvement of minors in Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist activity
in Saudi Arabia caused a stir in the country's press. Articles on the
issue harshly criticized Saudi culture, saying that it was saturated
with sectarian hatred and with admiration of violence, and called for
fundamental changes in it. They further claimed that Saudi society
suffocates the instincts and urges of young Saudis, pushing them to seek
an outlet in destructive alternatives such as joining terrorist groups,
and that the Saudi regime must reexamine the measures that it has taken
thus far to combat terrorism because it clearly remains helpless
against the current terrorist activity.

At the same time, a controversy has also arisen in the country on the
issue of young children's exposure to firearms and violence; this
followed the emergence of the phenomenon of videos on social media
showing little girls firing rifles and teen boys brandishing firearms.

Dr. Saghir Al-'Anzi, an academic at Saudi Arabia's Northern Borders
University, wrote that Saudi culture, language, and school curricula
glorify killing and violence, and that as long as this fact is ignored,
it is pointless to ask families and schools to boost their education and
supervision of the children. A substantial reform of Saudi culture is
needed, he said, to defeat ISIS:

"Our social culture, which incites to violence and cloaks it in
pleasing attire, has managed to keep us from understanding the dangerous
results [of violence], for we have grown used to its ideas since
childhood and have never discussed or pondered it, and habit blinds
one's eyes and seals one's ears. Our language, in its cunning beauty,
has imbued us with extremist thinking that maintains its tyrannical
[grip] even in [this] civilized age. The home produces extremism, and
[our] school curricula inculcate exclusion [of the other] and glorify
destruction...

"Our families and our schools exalt and empower the cause of
destructive heroism. The reason we are so impressed by 'the hero' – who
is our supreme social symbol ­– lies in his ability to create and export
violence. Our concept of heroism boils down almost exclusively to the
intensity of violence and bloody solutions. The stories that excite us
are those in which the hero can be seen beheading [his enemies], and the
more he succeeds in sowing destruction, the more he captures [our]
hearts. Fathers recount such [tales] to their children and grandmothers
recount the praiseworthy deeds of the grandfather, who quenched the soil
with blood. School curricula continue to teach grammar by plying pupils
with 1,300-year-old linguistic examples… For literary texts they give
us qasidas[2]of
heroism, where we exult in the beauty of murder and destruction and
become intoxicated with them, and they reside within us without us even
noticing… Many of the cultural tools we use for education at home and in
school involve extremely violent methods that inculcate extremism.

"This raises an important question: when we ask families to reinforce
the education of their children and tighten their supervision, [or]
when we urge the schools and universities to do the same, are we
eliminating extremism or intensifying it? When someone lacks a certain
[value], is he [capable of] imparting it? Someone who believes in a
negative value without [even] noticing its negativity, is he capable of
planting the opposite, positive value in the mind of another?

"Before we exhort any party to fulfill his role in oversight and
education, we must reexamine our culture, values, customs and sayings,
and see which [of them] are truly rooted in religion and are entirely
humanistic, and which of them [merely] exploit religion for their own
purpose, yet we mistakenly consider them to be supreme values when they
are [in fact] the very opposite. We must arm ourselves with transparency
and courage when we come to discuss our day-to-day culture… If we want
reform, we should not call the examination of our cultural and
educational faults 'self-flagellation,' and we should not be squeamish
about unveiling the defects in these [educational] methods and reforming
them. This does not detract from our worth; on the contrary, it makes
us a better society. It is not difficult to conduct self-criticism;
remove from our midst solutions that advocate force as the sole means of
self-realization; seek positive solutions by whose light to educate the
youth, as well as cultural sayings that view awareness as a source of
dignified existence; and create sayings, parables and language that
support coexistence [with others]… and which prefer intellect and vision
over a 'coercive' solution.

"Many of the values that have gone unexamined, the parables that have
been accepted as wise, and the sayings that have become inflexible laws
have actively contributed to forming little ISIS activists inside each
and every one of us, and therefore also in the minds of the younger
generation – creating [a personality type] that exults in murder. If we
truly want to eliminate the big ISIS activists, we must first of all
eliminate the small ISIS activists inside of us."[3]

"The
Nunu children's channel"; at the bottom of the screen: "Breaking news.
We apologize for interrupting the cartoon to report the arrest of three
children [belonging] to a terror cell" (Al-Jazirah, Saudi Arabia, May 29, 2015)

In his May 26, 2015 column in the Saudi government daily 'Okaz,
senior journalist Khalaf Al-Harbi wrote that the suffocating atmosphere
of Saudi society makes young people feel isolated and pushes them to
seek an outlet in harmful alternatives such as watching online
pornography, abusing drugs or joining terror organizations. He wrote:
"The interior ministry noted in its announcements that the ISIS cell
recently captured included boys and teens aged 15-19. While the
ministry's announcements focused on the role of the family in watching
children's behavior, I wish to point to the role of the larger family
(society), which puts pressure on boys and young men every day, keeps
them from enjoying themselves and constantly blames them – until they
have no choice but to escape to the edge of town where they can practice
[car] drifting like madmen, or else escape to the internet and its
virtual worlds, and later join the terror networks.

"Saudis, look at the data we have from across the
world that compares [the various countries]. Even if we do not rank
first in the world, we do rank fifth. But in what? In scientific
discoveries? No. In technological discoveries? In technological
advances? No. Only in deadly road accidents, in number of internet porn
movies watched, in number of Kik[4] users, in number of individuals joining the terror organizations... and in the amount of drugs captured per capita!

"All this has only one explanation, namely that the
world is changing fast, and oppression and isolation are grinding our
young people down. Whenever any one of us criticizes the various
expressions of extremism, he is immediately accused of being a
secularist, liberal or Zionist, or of wanting to corrupt society. [But]
the truth is that, even if the most satanical demons and people [in the
world all] worked hard to corrupt the youth, they would not have managed
to generate the disastrous levels [of corruption] that our youth has
attained. Extremists have come out against book fairs, song concerts,
shopping, the pluralistic press and television channels. So what
recreation [options] do these youngsters have left? There are [summer]
camps where they are isolated from their families and society, to make
it easier to recruit them to the terror networks. There are remote roads
where young men drift [cars] until they kill themselves. There are
secret rooms where they take drugs, far away from watching eyes. [And]
there are websites where they watch porn, with nobody supervising. That
is the bitter truth, even if you try to escape it...

"If the pressure on the youth continues, your
children will devour you and themselves. Don't keep them from living
just because you yourselves were denied life, [for] they will lead you
to the worst [possible fate]. The ongoing attempts of the security
apparatuses to arrest one or two terrorists, or ten or one hundred, may
be successful. But the existing climate of oppression, isolation and
suspicion may produce thousands of [other] crazy young people who sought
life and, not finding it, turned eagerly towards death![5]

Fourteen Years Of Combating Terror Have Been In Vain

In another column, Al-Harbi called to recognize
that none of the studies, reforms and debates in Saudi Arabia have led
to finding an adequate solution to the problem of terrorism, and that
new methods were needed to combat it. He wrote: "A friend pointed out to
me that, today, the age of those who join terrorist groups is around
15-16... This means that they were one year old when 9/11 happened in
the U.S, and three or four years old when Al-Qaeda carried out several
terror attacks in Saudi Arabia. Its means they started school when a
firm position against terrorism was [already] in place, and everyone
understood the magnitude of the threat it poses to the country and the
world. [Since then], for 14 years, dialogue forums and studies have
tried to trace the roots of terror and propose ways to eliminate it.
Ideas and curricula have been overhauled, and controversies regarding
this [process] required establishing teams to overhaul the overhaul.
There have been television programs and real time television debates.
But none of this kept young people from joining terror organizations,
and none of this was any use...

"The [ideas] that have been put up the blackboard
these past 14 years have not been bad at all, but if you want the truth,
it would be better to look for it rewrite the [entire] lesson plan!
This, because the state of terrorism is much more complicated today, now
that online social media networks are providing fertile ground for
recruiting suicide bombers, and now that terror organizations are
infiltrating the corridors of cyberspace. Moreover, the targets of the
terror organizations have changed, and are no longer as hard [to hit] as
they were. We are no longer talking about a military base of American
soldiers, but of the first group of innocent civilians that [the
terrorists happen to find,] walking by on the street, praying at a
mosque or shopping at the market!... Fourteen years of [combating]
terror have missed the mark!... Will we correct [the mistakes of] the
past?" [6]

'Al-Riyadh': Exposing Young Children To Firearms Produces A Violent Generation

Along with criticism of the Saudi teens'
involvement in the ISIS cell, Saudi media also criticized the culture of
exposing young children to firearms and violence. This issue came up in
early April 2015, after videos were posted on social media showing
little girls firing a rifle as family members urged them on. The videos
evoked furious comments, and were condemned on social networks and by
various experts.[7]

The government Saudi daily Al-Riyadh
addressed the matter in an article titled "Firearms In The Hands Of
Children – We Do Not Want An Aggressive Generation." It stated: "Perhaps
the girl who appeared on social networks carrying a firearm and firing
several shots, under the supervision and with the encouragement of her
father, who reiterates his prideand support, is not a common
sight. [However,] this is a negative and dangerous phenomenon, which
threatens these children's proper development. It could sow negative
ideas in their hearts and influence their behavior and social life, and
the formation of their personalities... as well as prevent them from
leading their lives in their society. A child who has grown used to
acting violently and aggressively can constitute a danger to society,
and can cause the spread and growth of this plague. Any family that
educates its son in racist extremism, and gets him accustomed to bearing
arms, may be preparing him to carry out violent actions in the
future..."

The newspaper interviewed education experts who
condemned the phenomenon, saying that it has a negative impact on
children, harms their development and the formation of their
personalities, and could help foster extremist, violent, and racist
tendencies. The experts interviewed say that on the societal level,
these influences on the child's development could loosen bonds between
groups in Saudi society and harm national unity.[8]

Girls firing rifles in videos posted to YouTube

Another Al-Riyadh article, titled
"Firearms In Our Home – Our Children In Danger," highlighted the
destructive consequences of carrying firearms and of keeping them in the
home, a practice common in Saudi society. It quoted Saudis who warned
about the danger inherent in doing so, particularly when firearms are
carried by teens who cannot understand the danger they pose, especially
when they get involved in fights with other teens.

The article notes that the Saudi Education
Ministry has launched a campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of
firearms among teens and among their parents and teachers. It also notes
that it is illegal to sell firearms in Saudi Arabia, and that the
Interior Ministry is tracking attempts to do so online and via social
media and arrests violators.[9]

These unequivocal
declarations made by Iran's spiritual leader -- the country's highest
authority on security and foreign affairs -- is more than a hint of
Iran's intention to maintain its nuclear program and its effort to
develop nuclear weapons.

Just a week before the
deadline for Iran and world powers to reach a final nuclear agreement,
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivered an aggressive
speech on Tuesday that symbolized more than anything the West's failure
in dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat.

In his speech, Khamenei
demanded the West immediately lift all sanctions as soon as a final
deal was reached, contrary to the West's demand for gradual sanctions
removal. Khamenei also ruled out freezing Iran's nuclear program for
longer than a decade and reiterated his refusal to allow inspectors
access to Iranian military sites.

These unequivocal
declarations made by Iran's spiritual leader -- the country's highest
authority on security and foreign affairs -- is more than a hint of
Iran's intention to maintain its nuclear program and its effort to
develop nuclear weapons.

Two weeks ago, at a
press conference on the second anniversary of his election, Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani made similar comments. And if all these
statements are not enough to constitute a glaring warning about Iran's
plans, the 2014 Country Reports on Terrorism that was published by the
U.S. State Department earlier this week revealed that Iran's support of
global terrorism has not only continued, but also expanded.

Lifting all sanctions
currently imposed on Iran as part of the final accord would be a
dangerous move that would boost the Iranian economically significantly
and allow it to further increase its support of global terrorism.

Meanwhile, according to
a document revealed last week by WikiLeaks, in 2012 Saudi diplomats in
Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, believed Iran had shipped advanced
nuclear equipment, including centrifuges for enriching uranium, to
Sudan.

Eight months later, in October of that year, foreign media reported that Israel struck an arms factory in Sudan.

Even if the WikiLeaks
information was false (Saudi Arabia did not deny it), it was an
illustration to the West of what Iran is capable of doing to preserve
its nuclear capabilities.

If not in Sudan, Iran could transport to another location and even continue to develop it there.

The series of
declarations, voiced by Iran's most senior officials, who have been
clear about Iran's commitment to continued development of its nuclear
program, indicate that the chances for the final deal between world
powers and Iran by June 30 is quite low.

If indeed a deal is
eventually signed, the West would be compelled to make further gestures
to Iran, making the deal completely redundant.

Even without any further Western
concessions being made, the deal, according to the current details that
have been reported, would enable Iran to, within a few years, turn into a
threatening nuclear power with international legitimacy and a legal
stamp to whitewash any of its violations of U.N. Security Council
resolutions.

The U.S. and its partners are reportedly ready to
provide the Iranians with advanced nuclear reactors and equipment,
giving the impression that no matter how hard the ayatollah tries to
torpedo nuclear talks with the world powers, they just won't let him.

Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

|

Photo credit: AP

Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei feels confident
enough, only a few days before June 30 (the deadline for a final-status
nuclear deal with world powers), to thumb his nose at the international
community, including the American government, and declare Iran's three
noes: no to freezing its nuclear program, no to international oversight
at its nuclear facilities, no to a phased lifting of sanctions (as
proposed by the French). In other words, Khamenei is telling the world:
Dear superpowers -- bite me.

Meanwhile, almost simultaneously, we have
received an Associated Press report from Vienna that the U.S. and its
partners conducting the negotiations with Iran are prepared -- for the
sake of reaching a deal -- to even provide the Iranians with advanced
nuclear reactors and equipment. This isn't a joke.

It's possible, perhaps, to imagine Khamenei
rejecting this generous offer outright because the Americans aren't also
including ballistic missiles in the package. If you're going to be
generous, then you might as well go all the way.

Truth be told, this entire business to this
point seems quite like a joke. The problem is that it's coming at our
expense. And it's also not that funny.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius met on
Wednesday with his Saudi counterpart and promised him a "tough deal."
The Saudis are no less worried than we are about a bad deal. But who is
promising us a "tough deal?" The French, who ultimately always fall in
line with the Americans, whose help they need for more burning issues
closer to home (Ukraine)? Who? The Russians? The Chinese? The Americans?
The Germans? The British? The truth is, it would be best to trust the
Iranians to torpedo the deal on their own, but Khamenei's and even
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's promulgations from two weeks ago
aren't enough to scare anyone off.

In November 2013, as a reminder, we were just
several days before the interim agreement. I remember how the Iranian
and Western delegations leaked information about the many difficulties
in the negotiations, but that in the end, in the middle of the night,
the deal was born (how shocking). Eventually, we saw virtually the same
scenario unfold in Lausanne this past March -- the numerous problems
were made public, the deadline was extended by a few days, and finally
on April 2 we received the framework deal.

We can assume that in the coming days we will
get to see "the best show in town," at the end of which, in contrast to
the previous rounds, we can expect a final status deal with an Iran that
is not only slated to become a nuclear power but a stabilizing force in
our crumbling Middle East.

In Tehran on Tuesday, Khamenei spoke about his country's
"red lines." Red lines? Can someone maybe explain what those are to the
Obama administration?

-- "nearly one-fifth of Muslim respondents said that the use
of violence in the United States is justified in order to make shariah
the law of the land in this country," the CSP polling data showed.

The Center for Security Policy (CSP) has released the results of a poll showing alarmingly high levels of support for shariah law and violence among the American Muslim community.

According
to the nationwide survey, "significant minorities embrace supremacist
notions that could pose a threat to America's security and its
constitutional form of government."

A majority (51 percent) of Muslims surveyed said they "should have the choice of being governed according to shariah."

Almost
30 percent of American Muslims believe it is legitimate to use violence
"against those that insult the prophet Muhammad, the Qur'an, or Islamic
faith."

One-quarter
of Muslims said that "violence against Americans here in the United
States can be justified as part of the global jihad."

Even
more ominous, "nearly one-fifth of Muslim respondents said that the use
of violence in the United States is justified in order to make shariah
the law of the land in this country," the CSP polling data showed.

When
asked "if shariah conflicts with the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of
Rights, which law should be considered supreme?," one-third of Muslim
respondents said shariah.

As
for their political views, 48 percent of the Muslims surveyed said they
are Democrats, 19 percent are Independents, and just 19 percent are
Republicans.